


Some People Ride the Wave

by sweetestdrain



Category: Dead Like Me
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 14:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetestdrain/pseuds/sweetestdrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moment and the moments before, or: George doesn't actually like yoga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some People Ride the Wave

It is not immediate, nor is it sudden. It is insidious; it creeps in and appears when George least expects it, like an unpleasant foot fungus. Except it is not unpleasant (in fact, by its very definition it is the opposite), and it is not a foot fungus.

 

Upon further reflection, George thinks, it's actually pretty cool.

 

When George tells Rube (because she feels like she has to tell _someone_), he simply looks at her. His expression is bemused at first, then oddly proud. Slowly a smile begins to twitch at the corner of his mouth.

 

*

 

Before this moment, two years have passed. George quit her job at Happy Time (again), and had all of her two-weeks-notice to regret her decision. She wasn't going to back out of it this time, though. Dolores buzzed around her in George's final days, alternating between tearful reminisces about the good old days and angry outbursts about George's ungrateful attitude. As George's final day drew nearer, Dolores veered more toward the former.

 

"You'll have to keep in touch, Millie," she said warmly. "And if you ever need anything, anything at all - except for me to post your bail, because I think once was enough for that, don't you? - just call me. Okay?" Dolores's maroon-colored smile stretched thinly across her face, and had the dual effect of warming George with its sincerity and also making her feel vaguely uncomfortable.

 

"Thanks, Dolores," said George.

 

Her coworkers threw a going-away party for her. There was a goat involved, and also a rather stale chocolate cake, some tiny elfin hats, and a large amount of raspberry-flavored baked brie. That was about all George could remember of the evening, for which she was thankful.

 

*

 

George had some money saved, so she didn't need a new job immediately, but she was at a loss as to what else she could do all day. She was officially office-free. Work-free. She could goof off all day long, just like she was a miserable and worthless teenager again.

 

(Except for her reaping assignments, of course. Rube still expected her to do those, because he was a callous, unfeeling tyrant. A snarling dictator of the un-alive. A freak of nature: Half-man, half-sweater. An egg-headed man who resembled a major Broadway star. George enjoyed thinking up names to call him in her copious amounts of free time.)

 

After a while spent like this, George started getting really bored, so she decided on a plan. She would try out new and exciting things until she found something she liked. After all, she should have _some_ idea of what to do with her un-life.

 

She started with bungee-jumping, which she soon realized wasn't smart. "While you're up there," Rube had said, and George had to make a detour to pop the soul of one of her fellow jumpers whose bungee cord happened to be bungee-impaired. The resulting splat was entirely too vivid for George's tastes.

 

The next day, she decided to take up gardening.

 

*

 

This continues for a while, much to the mocking and bemusement of George's fellow reapers. Finally, inspired by their snide comments, George decides to try something _really_ crazy; she decides to be happy with her job.

 

Rube is really suspicious for the first three days, and George enjoys being as agreeable as she possibly can just to see what expressions she can get to pop up on his face. One thing she never counted on with this latest endeavor was exactly how much it would fuck with people's heads. It's the most fun she's had yet.

 

Then for two days after that, Rube starts getting appreciative of George's lack of backtalk, and actually takes her seriously. By the end of the week, however - and Rube is so predictable, she knew it! - he's sick and tired of George's peppy attitude.

 

"Here," Rube growls, shoving the post-it in George's direction. He doesn't look at her, probably because he's afraid the sight of her unnaturally beaming face will burn his retinas.

 

George takes it from him with a bright smile. "Gee, thanks boss!" she chirps. A quick glance at the post-it reveals she has a couple of hours to kill (okay, bad phrasing, she thinks) before her assignment.

 

Rube groans and rubs his temples. Roxie is pointedly ignoring George. Daisy is distracted by a chipped nail. Mason is distracted by both Daisy and his thunderous hangover.

 

"Nothing wrong with a little cheer in one's workday," says George.

 

Mason finally gives her a blearily pointed glare over the hashbrowns that he's nearly face-down in. "Cheer?" he says incredulously. "Whatever drugs you've been taking this past week, give ol' Mason a bit, eh?"

 

"'Eh' is for horses," says George brightly.

 

"And Canadians," Daisy interjects, scowling at her nail.

 

"We're ignoring the situation at hand," says Rube, "which is one of our own being insufferably cheery. It's not allowed. It's - _Stop whistling._"

 

George stops whistling, and thinks that provoking Rube is well worth the ache in her jaw from all the smiling.

 

"You need an outlet for this cheer," says Rube. "Or some way to subvert it. What about Eastern meditation?"

 

"What about downers?" says Roxie, looking up from her slice of cherry pie.

 

"Yoga?" counters Rube. "I went to a pretty good yoga class once."

 

"Oh, yeah?" Roxie says with interest, "Who was the instructor?"

 

"It doesn't matter," says Rube, "he's dead now."

 

It's kind of funny how many reaper conversations tend to end with that line. Roxie simply says "Ah," and nods, turning back to her pie.

 

"Okay, yoga," says George. Yoga can be her new thing. After that she'll try martial arts lessons, or take up macrame.

 

She realizes that her mouth has slipped from its scary smile back to its normal state of a flat, unimpressed line. The whole table looks relieved, and she considers resurrecting it but she suspects she might be too lazy to bother.

 

*

 

George doesn't actually like yoga, but she's viewing it as a challenge. If she masters all the yoga poses, if she gets the breathing right, then maybe she'll qualify for a black belt in yoga. Maybe not. Still - being utterly _Zen Cool_ will be worth the back pain.

 

Maybe.

 

She's been going to yoga classes for approximately a month when her little sister walks in the door.

 

George's eyes widen and her current state of being a "Standing Tall Tree Containing Gnarled Branches With Little Teeny Leaves" wavers, wobbles, and almost sends her crashing into the bendy little brunette on the next mat over.

 

"Hey, watch it!" exclaims Bendy.

 

"Sorry," George mutters, but her attention is on Reggie in the doorway. She doesn't know if she should make a run for it or go over to Reggie and ask a bunch of creepy-sounding questions like _How are you? How are your parents? I'm sorry about your dog, you know, the one that died two years ago_.

 

Reggie looks older - well, duh - and George is taken aback a little at how grown-up she's appearing. She's taller and prettier and her glasses fit her face, and George feels weird, feels for one crazy moment like Reggie's taken her life. Which is stupid, and she shakes the feeling off. What takes its place is a weird mix of pride and the undying sibling urge to go ruffle Reggie's hair and steal her books.

 

Reggie's looking around for a spot to lay her mat, since when did Reggie even like yoga? and before she even knows what she's doing, George is getting up.

 

"Here!" she calls to Reggie. "You can have my spot."

 

Reggie looks over, startled. "Really?" she says. "Thanks!"

 

"You're welcome," says George. She breaks eye contact with Reggie and rolls up her little purple mat. She doesn't like yoga anyway, and all of the things she wants to say to her sister refuse to come out of her mouth. She doesn't know if it's some reaper side effect or just nerves.

 

"Wait!" says Reggie suddenly, pausing on her way to George's vacated spot. Disgruntled murmurs from a couple of yoga-ers nearby prompt her to lower her voice. "Sorry," she says more quietly, "But hey - don't I know you from somewhere?"

 

George freezes. _Yes_. "No," she says. "I don't think so." _Yes, you do._

 

Reggie looks embarrassed, but she won't let up that easily. "Are you _sure_?" she says, like it's vitally important. And that - George _so_ remembers that face.

 

"I'm sure," says George. There's nothing else to say.

 

"Oh," says Reggie. She stands there for a moment, awkwardly, in the middle of the room. Dozens of tights-clad legs wave and flicker around her, doing the "Overly Melted Candle Standing On End". "Well, maybe I'll see you later, then," she says.

 

George doesn't comment on how weird that sounds. She gets it. She has a funny feeling that Reggie gets it too.

 

"Yeah," says George. "See you."

 

*

 

George gets a job at McDonalds the next day. She lasts exactly three hours and seven minutes before she is on the verge of going apeshit and chopping off bits of her fingers into the fries just to liven things up.

 

She quits the McDonalds gig, and starts working at a little bookstore. George can't figure out why she's so on edge while working there until she realizes she _likes_ the job. And really, it's great. The manager is okay with her working weird hours, and she can catch up on all her reading.

 

Time passes. Things happen. George runs into Reggie again at the mall, but manages to avoid most contact. Still. Screw that, she thinks. No matter what Rube would say - or has said in the past - the next time she sees Reggie she's gonna invite her for coffee.

 

"I'm the crazy yoga girl," she'll say. "You can call me Millie."

 

She doesn't know if it'll happen, but merely making the hypothetical decision proves to be comforting.

 

*

 

And then comes the moment. It happens after a particularly disgusting reap involving a dumb but well-mannered old guy and a woodchipper - an incident which George is still getting the creepy crawlies about, thank you very much, there was a _reason_ she never watched Fargo.

 

She's sitting in Der Waffel Haus with the others, and laughing at some retarded thing Mason has said. The others are bantering, Rube is making notes in his appointment book, and this is where she is. She's got a purpose, and it's so easy just to ride the flow of her   
fellow reapers' - or, okay, her _friends_' voices. She's been fighting this sense of belonging off and on for the past three years, ever since she died, because it creeped her out... but it's feeling good lately. It's feeling okay.

 

And hello -- _moment._ Here it is.

 

George realizes, quite suddenly, that she is happy.

 

Huh.

 

Okay, end of moment.

 

She considers sitting down, and realizes that she's already sitting down. Perhaps fainting for a moment would be appropriate for this new feeling, she thinks, but then the window of opportunity for dramatics has passed. The happiness is just there, inside her, deep and clean-feeling in her gut.

 

George doesn't know where the hell that came from, she really doesn't; but after some contemplation, she decides she's gonna have to live with it.

 

Such a hardship. George smiles to herself, and moves back into the flow.

 

\- fin.


End file.
